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Opening Match:

Russia vs Saudi Arabia

14th June 2018(LIVE links will be added just before 30 minutes of the match)

After three years or so of tireless efforts, a number of matches, goals and yellow cards, the list of qualifying FIFA member teams are now acknowledged by the world. Russia is ready to welcome the 21st FIFA World Cup, the hosting rights being awarded to the country on 2 December 2010.

The number of matches are decided to be 64 which will be played in 12 different venues. Russia will play the first match at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on 14 June against Saudi Arabia.

Zabivaka - 2018 FIFA World Cup Mascot

Zabivaka

After a month-long internet poll, ‘Zabivaka’ qualified as the official mascot for Fifa world by securing 53% of the votes on 22nd October 2016. Zabivaka, the official mascot is set to entertain crowds at the stadium and become a symbolic ambassador for Russia.

The impact of the selected world cup location is such that the name of the mascot “Zabivaka” is derived from Russian language and its literal meaning is “the one who scores”.

The human-like wolf mascot is dressed in blue and white T-shirt and red shorts; the dress color being a combination of the national colors of Russian team.On the T-shirt, the mascot design creator, Ekaterina Bocharovahas placed the words “RUSSIA 2018”.

Qualified Teams Of FIFA World Cup 2018 (Russia)

The participation in the tournament is secured by 32 teams; 1 being the automatically selected host team and 31 selected through qualifying competitions. The governing body, Fédération Internationale de Football Association conducted a series of tournaments between all member association teams except Zimbabwe and Indonesia which were disqualified before the first match.

The qualification process began in March 2015, Brazil being the first team to qualify for Fifa world cup following their victory over Paraguay. The list of qualified teams, in order of the date of qualification includes Russia, Brazil, Iran, Japan, Mexico, Belgium, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Germany, England, Spain, Nigeria, Costa Rica, Poland, Egypt, Iceland, Serbia, Portugal, France, Uruguay, Argentina, Columbia, Panama, Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia, Switzerland, Croatia, Sweden, Denmark, Australia and Peru.

Groups

In this 2018 Fifa world cup, Qualified 32 Teams have been divided into 8 groups. Each group has 4 teams and the top 2 teams will be advanced to the "Knockout Stage". See the below table to know which group has which teams.

Stadiums To Host 2018 FIFA World Cup (Russia)

Russia had initially proposed 16 stadiums for the world cup to take place. The host cities included Kaliningrad, Kazan, Krasnodar, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Saint Petersburg, Samara, Saransk, Sochi, Volgograd, Yaroslavl, and Yekaterinburg, all of which are located in or near European Russia thus, in order to mitigate the travel time for playing teams.

Three stadiums were agreed by Russia to be renovated and 13 stadiums to be constructed. In October 2011, however, Russia reduced the offered stadiums by two. The plan for construction of Podolsk stadiumwas cancelled by the regional government and the decision for the order of construction of Otkrytiye Arena and Dynamo Stadium could not be reached.

With further 2 stadiums excluded from the list of finalized venues, FIFA and the Local Organizing Committee agreed on the official names of the stadiums used during the tournament on 8 October 2015.

Out of the decided venues, the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow and the Saint Petersburg Stadium will be used most, as they are the two largest stadiums in Russia with the capacity of 81,000 and 68,134 people respectively. Seven matches are decided to be held at each of the stadiums.

Channels That Will Broadcast 2018 Soccer World Cup

Fifa World Cup will be marked as the first men's World Cup in the United States whose rights will be held by Fox Sports. Subsequent to the non-qualification for the Fifa World Cup, it is anticipated that the viewership will be significantly reduced in the United States as compared to the 16.5 million views of the 2014 World Cup. Fox Sports has though, assured to broadcast a significant amount of coverage of the matches with its main focus on Mexican Team.

Country

Channel

Argentina

TyC Sports & DirecTV

Australia

Optus Sport & SBS

Belgium

RTBF & VRT

Bolivia

DirecTV, Unitel & Red Uno

Brazil

BandSports, SporTV, ESPN Brasil & Band

Chile

DirecTV, Canal 13, Movistar & Mega

Colmbia

RCN TV, Caracol TV & DirecTV

France

beIN Sports & TF1

Finland

Yle

Germany

ZDF & ARD

Hong Kong

Now TV & ViuTV

Indonesia

Superpass & K-Vision

Italy

Mediaset

Japan

TV Asahi, Fuji TV, NTV, NHK & TBS

Malaysia

Astro

Netherland

NOS

New Zealand

Sky Sport

Spain

Mediaset Espana

United States

Telemundo & FOX

United Kingdom

ITV & BBC

Official Theme Song Of 2018 Football World Cup

The heart-warming Fifa World Cup 2018 theme song, “We are Racists” is set to represent the Russia’s football culture and the three years’ efforts put into the championship. According to Russian Football Union (RFU), the song is written and produced by a band of Russian football hooligans.

Other than the title, the song is written in Russian, contrary to the former Fifa World Cup theme songs that are multilingual with major focus on English and mostly Spanish. The theme song features the same monkey chants which were directed at Ghanaian and former Arsenal player Emmanuel Frimpong during a game between FC Ufa and Spartak Moscow.

Prize Money For World Cup Russia 2018

Out of 791 million allocated for 2018 World Cup, $400 million has been confirmed to be awarded to 32 qualifying teams. In October 2017, Fifa announced the prize money equal to USD 38 million for Champions, USD 28 million for runners-up, USD 24 million for third place and USD 22 million for fourth place.

It also fixed the prize money at USD 16 million per team (USD 64 million in total) for fifth to eight place, USD 12 million per team (USD 96 million in total) for ninth to sixteenth place and USD 8 million per team (USD 128 million in total) for seventeenth to thirty-second place. Furthermore, participation bonus of $1.5 million will be awarded to every qualified team.

What We Will Miss in Fifa World Cup 2018?

As the Fifa World Cup 2018 is approaching, the audience is portraying mixed feelings of joy and uneasiness as some of the well-known football team players will be absent. The Chile champions namely Alexis Sanchez, Arturo Vidal and Claudio Bravo, the Italy champions including Gianluigi Buffon, Real Madrid star Gareth Bale, Arsenal midfielder Aaron Ramsey and several others are excluded from the list of Fifa World Cup’s qualifying team players.

However, the circumstances confirm that the World Cup will be worthwhile to watchand the viewership for 2018 may exceed the previous record of 16.5 million views.